The Self Healing Concrete Project Involves Limestone and Bacteria

The Self Healing Concrete project is not the first attempt at creating a cement mixture that stands the test of time. In 2009, researchers at the University of Michigan developed a flexible concrete while a year later Michelle Pelletier conceived of a concrete that would produce a sort of goo when a crack surfaced.

This time around, scientists from the TU Delft-wide Self-healing Materials research programme at the Delft Center for Materials (DCMat) have put together the Self Healing Concrete project, which involves the use of bacteria. When tension creates a crack in the cement surface and the bacteria is activated by water, a limestone substance is produced to fill it in.